(6.) Ramah would appear to have been at some con- siderable distance from the residence of Saul at Gibe- ah. Such, at least, is the conclusion one would naturally draw from the following passages: 1 Sam. xv, 34, 35; xix, 18-23. But in neither of these passages is it clear- ly asserted nor certainly implied. In another passage the immediate proximity of Gibeah and Ramah seems to be directly stated (1 Sam. xxii, 6). This passage, it is true, may either be translated (with Junius, Miehae- lis, De Wette, and Bunsen), "Saul abode in Gibeah un- der the tamarisk on the height" (in which case it will add one to the scanty number of instances in which the word is used otherwise than as a proper name) ; or it may imply that Ramah was included within the pre- cincts of the king's city. The Sept. reads Bama for Ramah, and renders the words " on the hill under the field in Bama." Eusebius, in the Onomasticon (s. v. 'Pa fid), characterizes Ramah as the "city of Saul." In any case, there seems to be no insuperable objection against the identity of Ramah of Saul with Ramah of Benjamin.
(e.) It is usually assumed that the city in which Saul was anointed by Samuel (1 Sam. ix, x) was Samuel's own city, Ramah. Josephus certainly (Ant. vi, 4, 1) does give the name of the city as Armathem, and, in his version of the occurrence, implies that the prophet was at the time in his own house ; but neither the Hebrew nor the Sept. contains any statement which confirms this, if we except the slender fact that the "land of Zuph" (1 Sam. ix, 5) may be connected with the Zophim of Ramathaim-zophim. Robinson admits that "the answer of the maidens (ix, 11, 12) would, perhaps, rather imply that Samuel had just arrived, possibly on one of his yearly circuits in which he judged Israel in various cities" {Bib, Res. ii, 10). It cannot be questioned, in- deed, that, apart from all theories, the whole course of the narrative leaves the impression that Samuel was in his own house in Ramah when Saul visited him. He was there when the Lord informed him, apparently on the preceding day (comp. 1 Sam. viii, 4, 22; ix, 15, 16), of his intention to appoint a king. The words of Saul's servant, too, convey the same impression : " When they were come to the land of Zuph, Saul said, Let us re- turn ;" but the servant said, " Behold now, there is in this city a man of God ... let us go thither" (ix, 5, G). This would scarcely apply to a place in which Samuel was but a casual visitor. But, on the other hand, the place of the interview could not have been within the tribe of Benjamin, because [1] the Lord, in foretelling to Samuel the coming of Saul, said, "To-morrow, about this time, I will send thee a man out of the land of Ben- jamin" (1 Sam. ix. 16) ; and [2] Saul, when in search of the asses, " passed through Mount Ephraim, and passed through the land of Shalisha ; then through the land of Shalim ; and he passed through the land of the Ben- jamites" (ver. 6). Then they came " to the land of Zuph." The land of Zuph was consequently south of Benjamin. So, in returning home (apparently to Gibe- ah) from the place of the interview, Saul's way led past Rachel's tomb, the site of which is well known, near Bethlehem. It follows, from the minute specification of Saul's route in 1 Sam. x, 2, that the city in which the interview took place was near the sepulchre of Ra- chel, which, by Gen. xxxv, 16, 19, and other reasons, ap-
RAM ATI I EM
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RAMBACH
pi ars to be fixed with certainty as close to B thlehem. This supplies a strong argument against its being Ra- mathaim-zophim, rince, while Mount Ephraim, as we have endeavored already to Bhow, extended to within a few miles north of Jerusalem, there is nothing to war- rant the supposition that it ever reached so far south as
the neighborh i of Bethlehem. Saul's route will be
. i -nieiitly discussed under the head of Sai l; but the question of both his outward and his homeward journey, minutely as they are di tailed, is beset with dif- ficulties, which have been increased by the assumptions of the commentators. For instance, it is usually taken for granted that his father's bouse — and therefore the Btart- ing-point of his wanderings was Gibeah. True, Saul himself, after he was king, lived at Gibeah; but the residence of Kish would appear to have been at Zela, where bis family sepulchre was (2 Sam. sxi, l 1 1; and ol Zela ii" trace bas yet been found. The A. V. has ad< led to the difficulty by introducing the word " meet" in \. :; as the translation of the term which is more accurately rendered "find" in the preceding verse. Again, w here h as I be " hill of < rod," the gibath-Elohim, with the netsib of the Philistines? A netsib of the Phi- listines is mentioned later in Saul's history (1 Sam.xiii, 3) as at Geba, opposite Michmash; but this is three miles north of Gibeah of Saul, and does not at all agree with a situation mar Bethlehem for the anointing of Saul. The Targum interprets the "hill of God"as"the place where the ark of God was." meaning Kirjalh-jea- rim. There is no necessity whatever for supposing that Samuel was at Ramah when he anointed Saul. The name of the place where Samuel was at the time is not given in the sacred narrative, the language of which rather implies that it was not his regular abode; for ii says that he had come that day into the city to attend a sacrifice or a feast of the people (1 Sam. ix, 11, 12 ). The city was most probably Bethlehem, with the in- habitants of which Samuel was connected, being a de- scendant of Zuph, an Ephrathite. and was likely to have been invited to their feast: and the land of Zuph, into which Saul had come, must have been the region of Bethlehem. That Samuel was in the habit of visiting Bethlehem for the purpose of sacrificing is certain from 1 Sam. \\i. I 5 (coxnp. XX, 29). We may therefore conclude thai he had come at this time thither from Ramah of Benjamin,